Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/10

Canute The phrase denotes a renewal of the good government under which men had lived in the reign of Eadgar, when both races dwelt together on terms of perfect equality, each being judged by its own law, though indeed the difference between the systems was scarcely more than one of name. From this time Cnut appears in England as a wise and just ruler. He reigned as a native king, and though he was lord of vast dominions he ever treated England as the chief of all. He constantly visited his other kingdoms, but he made his home here, and while he ruled elsewhere by viceroys he made this country the seat of his government, so that in his reign England was, as it were the head of a northern empire ( ii. 63). Yet even here he adopted something of an imperial system of government; for, following out the policy already pursued by Eadgar, he divided the kingdom into four earldoms, and entrusted the administration of each part to a single earl, Just as each of the four divisions of the German land and race was under its own duke (, Const Hist. i. 202, where the feudal tendency of this arrangement is marked). The highest offices in church and state were open to Englishmen. Æthelnoth was archbishop of Canterbury, Godwine earl of Wessex. During his later years, indeed, when he saw fit to banish certain Danish earls from England, he filled their places with Englishmen, and so 'Danish names gradually' disappear from the charters and are succeeded by English names' (Norman Conquest, i. 476).

Having set in order his new kingdom, Cnut visited Denmark in 1019, using for his voyage the forty ships he had retained. He took with him Englishmen as well as Danes, and Godwine is said to have gained his favour by doing him good service in a war he made during this visit against the Wends (. 757). On his return to England in 1020 he was present at the consecration of the church at Assandun that he and Earl Thurkill had built to commemorate the victory over Eadmund. The chronicler notes that the building was 'of stone and lime,' for in that well-wooded district timber would have been the natural and less costly material to use. Wulfstan, archbishop of York (the see of Canterbury was vacant), and many bishops were there, and the ceremony was one of national importance. The foundation must have been small, for the church was served bu a single secular priest. Cnut was a liberal ecclesiastical benefactor, generally favouring the monks rather than the secular clergy. He rebuilt the church of St. Eadmund at Bury, evidently as an atonement for the wrong his father had done the saint, turned out the secular clerks, and filled their places with a colony of monks brought from the monastery of Hulm in Norfolk ( Gesta Reg. ii. 181, Gesta Pontiff. 161; Monasticon, iii. 135, 137). The solemn translation of the body of Archbishop Ælfheah from St. Paul's to the metropolitan church in 1023 doubtless had a political as well as a religious significance. The English saw that the days of plunder by the heathen-men were over for ever, and that the Danish king delighted to honour the martyr whose death made him a national hero. Another of his acts of devotion has been held to cast a suspicion upon him, for in 1032 he visited Glastonbury, and after praying before the tomb of his rival Eadmund offered on it a pall worked with the various hues of the peacock. He also gave a charter to the monastery ( ii. 184, 185). He appears as a benefactor at Canterbury, Winchester, Ely, Ramsey, and elsewhere. He held English churchmen in high esteem. He admitted Lyfing, abbot of Tavistock, and afterwards (1027) bishop of Crediton, to intimate friendship, and took him with him on his journeys to Denmark and Rome ( Gesta Pontiff. 200). Archbishop Æthclnoth evidently had considerable influence over him. He took many clergy from England to Denmark, and appointed some of them to bishoprics there. One or more of these bishops were consecrated by the English metropolitan. This brought the king into communication with Unwan, archbishop of Hamburg. Unwan seized Gerbrand, who had been consecrated to the see of Roskild by Æthelnoth in 1022, and made him profess obedience to him, and wrote to Cnut to complain of this infringement of the rights of his see. Cnut was glad to oblige the powerful metropolitan of the north, and took care that all such matters should be arranged as he wished for the future. Whatever headship England had among the dominions of the Danish king, it was not to give the church of Canterbury metropolitan rights over them (. ii. 53). Cnut's munificence extended to foreign churches, and by the advice of Æthelnoth he greatly helped the building of the cathedral of Chartres. His devout liberality took men by surprise. Both he and his father Sweyn seem to have been looked on as heathens by Christendom at large until Cnut exhibited himself as the most zealous of christian kings. The affairs of the north were little known, and Cnut, in spite of his baptism, gave men little cause to deem him a christian until after his accession. A contemporary writer, Ademar of Chabannes, states that he was converted